Datadog for Startups gives early-stage companies up to $100,000 in credits and a full year of the complete Datadog platform, with no limited tier. This post covers the concrete part: how to get the credits step by step, how long they last, what Datadog costs once they run out, and the cheaper alternatives worth lining up before then.
How to get Datadog for startups credits
There are three eligibility requirements, then a short application.2
- Series A or earlier. This is a ceiling, not a floor. You do not need to be venture funded, pre-seed and bootstrapped companies qualify too, as long as you have not raised past Series A.
- New to Datadog. This is defined at the company level, not per email. Your company must never have been a paying Datadog customer, and must not have received these credits before. A free trial does not count, you start one as part of applying.
- Referred by a partner. You cannot apply cold. Every applicant comes through a referral partner: a VC firm, a startup accelerator, a startup community, or a hyperscaler program like AWS Activate. Having none of those is the real blocker, not your funding. If you are in one, the Datadog offer is usually already in your perks.
The application itself is 4 steps:
- Apply on the Datadog for Startups page and select your referral partner from the list (your VC, accelerator, or AWS Activate).
- Start a Datadog trial as part of the application.
- Wait for the acceptance email, usually 3 to 5 business days.
- Once accepted, confirm within 30 days to activate the credits, or the acceptance expires and you reapply.
After that, keep the account active. 3 months with no usage triggers a warning, and another 30 days of inactivity removes you from the program.
How long the credits last
The credits last 12 months, or until you have used the full $100,000, whichever comes first. For most small teams the 12 months runs out long before the credits do, so in practice it is 1 year of free access to the whole platform.
One thing is worth planning for. When the year is up, the account does not pause. It switches to normal billing for whatever you have set up, with no change in your usage.3 By default that billing is monthly and self-serve, and month-to-month rates run higher than the annual prices unless you sign a contract, so the real bill can sit a little above the estimates below. Either way it helps to know roughly what it will be before you get there. That is the next section.
What Datadog actually costs a startup
It depends on how much you are running. Here is roughly what different setups pay at list prices.1
| If you run... | What you are mostly paying for | Roughly per month |
|---|---|---|
| A few services, one database, light traffic | Hosts, and a little logging | $600 to $900 |
| A dozen services on Kubernetes, real log volume, the usual custom metrics | Hosts, plus heavy log indexing and custom metrics | ~$3,000 |
| High traffic, plus synthetics and session replay | All of the above, plus extra products | $5,000+ |
Illustrative estimates at annual list prices. Real bills vary with commit and volume.
The servers themselves are almost never the expensive part. Here is where the middle row, the roughly $3,000 setup, actually goes:
| Where the $3,000 goes | Per month |
|---|---|
| Servers monitored (infrastructure + APM) | ~$550 |
| Logs (ingest + indexing) | ~$700 |
| Custom metrics | ~$1,500 |
| Database monitoring, synthetics, replay | ~$250 |
| Total | ~$3,000 |
Logs and custom metrics are the two lines that grow with traffic and with how much you measure, which is why the bill is hard to predict. The full per-unit pricing is on Datadog's pricing page.
What to switch to, and how hard it is
You have options along a spectrum. SigNoz and Grafana Cloud are cheap and capable, but more basic, and they lean on you to build and maintain the dashboards. Uptrace and New Relic give you more, closer to the all-in-one feel of Datadog, but they are still traditional setups you configure and watch. And if you want something AI-native and quick to set up, that is where Fixter fits: instead of handing you dashboards, it investigates issues for you, pulls the logs and traces, finds the root cause, and returns the conclusion, queried in plain language over MCP from your editor. We compare all of them, with prices, in the Datadog alternatives guide.
Whichever you pick, moving over is a good step to take before the credits end, not after, and it is easier than it used to be. Your monitors and dashboards export as JSON through the Datadog API and the official Terraform provider,4 and Datadog ships an MCP server that works with Claude Code,5 so you can point an agent at your monitors and have it rebuild most of them in the new tool. With Fixter it is easier still: because it is MCP-native, migrating your alerts over is something an agent does for you. Thresholds and routing come across cleanly; the Datadog-specific query functions are where you make a few manual calls.
Key takeaways
- Datadog for Startups: up to $100,000 in credits, full platform, one year
- Eligibility is Series A or earlier, new to Datadog, and referred by a VC, accelerator, or AWS Activate
- Apply on the program page, get accepted in 3 to 5 business days, activate within 30 days
- Credits last 12 months or until used up; when they end, billing switches to list rates with no change in usage
- A dozen services on Kubernetes runs around $3,000 a month, so it is worth lining up a cheaper tool before the year is out
Frequently asked questions
How do I get Datadog for startups credits?
Apply on the Datadog for Startups page and name a referral partner: a VC firm, an accelerator, or a hyperscaler program like AWS Activate. You must be Series A or earlier and new to Datadog. Acceptance usually takes 3 to 5 business days, and you then have 30 days to activate the credits. The program gives up to $100,000 for 1 year.
Who is eligible for Datadog for startups?
Companies that are Series A or earlier, have never been a paid Datadog customer or received Datadog for Startups credits before, and are referred by a partner. You cannot apply cold: the application requires you to name a VC firm, accelerator, or hyperscaler startup program.
How long do Datadog startup credits last?
12 months, or until you have used the full $100,000 in credits, whichever comes first. For most small teams the 12 months runs out long before the credits do, so in practice it is 1 year of free access to the full platform.
What happens when Datadog startup credits run out?
The account does not pause. It switches to normal billing for whatever you have running, with no change in your usage. By default that is monthly self-serve billing, and month-to-month rates run higher than annual ones unless you sign a contract, so it is worth knowing roughly what the bill will be before you reach the end of the year.
How much does Datadog cost a startup?
It depends on your setup. A few services with one database and light traffic runs a few hundred dollars a month at list prices, while a dozen services on Kubernetes with real log volume lands around $3,000 a month. The per-host cost is small; logs and custom metrics are what drive the bill.
What should a startup switch to instead of Datadog?
SigNoz and Grafana Cloud are the cheaper, more basic options. Uptrace and New Relic feel closer to Datadog but are still traditional setups you configure yourself. Fixter is the AI-native option that investigates issues for you instead of handing you dashboards. The full comparison with prices is in the Datadog alternatives guide.